Despite the high unemployment numbers, many employers say they struggle finding talent to fill open positions; however, these employers often overlook the long-term unemployed, says Ravin Jesuthasan, global head of talent management at Towers Watson, a global professional services company in New York City.
There's a belief in the job market that those who are still unemployed were let go because of performance issues, but that often isn't true. The latest economic downturn forced many employers to completely restructure their staffs, and workers on all levels were impacted.
"There is still a belief that this is still a buyers' market, so many employers think they have their pick of the talent they want and are going to absolutely wait until they find the best person," Jesuthasan says. "A lot of outstanding talent was let go during the height of the recession, and they have not been able to get a fair shot because of much of the discrimination that's going on against unemployed talent versus those who are still employed. People falsely believe those who are still employed are high performers, but that isn't necessarily the case."
Rather than overlook the long-term unemployed, Jesuthasan believes employers should give more consideration to these job candidates. Just from a cost standpoint, employers could benefit from hiring from the unemployed talent pool because it is often more economical to hire those prospects.
"There's a lot of great talent at a fraction of the cost for what you might have to pay for talent that is already employed today," Jesuthasan says. "For people who are employed, they have the leverage to bid up, so the cost of hiring someone who is employed over someone with the same skills but is unemployed is greater. There is a real cost issue there that employers might want to examine."
While some long-term unemployed may have rusty job skills, particularly those in the manufacturing industry, this can be overcome with training, Jesuthasan says. Even an apprenticeship model can be implemented to ease the learning curve, or the long-term unemployed can come in on a contractual basis.
Instead of focusing on a possible lack of technical skills, Jesuthasan recommends that employers look at whether the hire is a good cultural match. Although finding the right cultural match is more difficult, adapting to a specific work environment is an intangible that shouldn't be overlooked. An employee's success certainly depends on his or her ability to perform specific job tasts as well as his or her ability to perform in a specific work environment.
"Finding someone who fits the culture but doesn't have the technical skills is an easy gap to fix with some training," Jesuthansan says. "Those skills can be learned, but hiring someone who actually fits the business and the culture is a much harder to find and address if there's a problem."
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